Dice of the First Degree

Almost two weeks ago, I played one of our PGs, a normal trollblood player. He recently switched to Ret because he's a two timing, no good, bandwagon jumping, traitorous kind of player. Anyways. We led off, and I dropped Jarl, trying him out some more. I'm really having a difficult time finding a 2nd list for tournaments. Madrak2 is my 1st list, and there's so many options for my second. I have yet to try Madrak2 against Cryx, and I really need to. Madrak2 should have been my drop against this list, but I'd already played Madrak2 against the other PG (another batrep I'm also working on). I keep making the mistake, consistenly, that shooting casters in trolls are made to handle shooting armies, and that's just not the case, yet I keep doing it. Madrak2 shrugs the shooting off pretty consistently, and tears it up in melee, whereas Grim1 and Jarl hunt solos and support the melee line, but their playstyle isn't such that it protects the guys as they move up the board. Madrak bricks up, brings high armor, a stone, a wall, and just marches up the board inexorably. The shooting casters actually want to be engaged. Grim1 will strip defense and hand out debuffs while Jarl protects the dudes on the way in. Against a shooting list, that's not a sound strategy.

Yet, here we are, Jarl vs. Issyria.

Jarl
*Runebearer
*Impaler
*Bomber
*Storm
*Slag
Fenns w/UA
Kithkar
Boomhowlers
Whelps
Chronicler
Sons of Bragg
Fell Caller

The PG brought:

Issryia
*Hyperion
*Chimera
MHSF w/UA
Houseguard Halberdiers w/UA
Houseguard Thane
x2 Mage Hunter Assassin
Ayaina & Holt


Right off the bat, I was going to struggle to kill Hyperion, and I knew it. The Slag could put a few shots in, and the Bomber would too, but it would take a few rounds to carve through him. Secondly, the MHSF were an issue, because I hate them... The Fenns die to them on less than average dice, so that doesn't help anything. Otherwise, I had enough shooting to pick out support models, and with clouds, had a way to protect my guys moving up the field from the Hyperion at least. Not the MHSF, of course, but everything else.

On the plus side, I didn't really have anything for Issyria to shut down with Blinding Light, so that wasn't too much of an issue. Her feat turn would weather me down pretty well, but other than that, wasn't too big of a deal. Hyperion would be an issue though. And the MHSF are frustrating.



So, everything moved up from Ret. The Hyperion picked up Inviolable Resolve, and the Chimera arc node got Admonition. Otherwise, everything ran, and spread out.



Impaler puts Far Strike on the Bomber for some early drifting goodness, and walks up. Boomhowlers 4+ tough and run into the zone, and the Fenns run forward as well while the Chronicler gives then "Feign Death". Bomber stands on the hill, drifting AOEs. He kills an MHSF and a Halberdier, and then a Fenn, who toughs.

Runebearer puts Harmonious Exaltation down, and Jarl moves up, trying to Magic Bullet the MHSF UA off of Hyperion, which I promptly miss. I was going to try it again, and was informed that killing the UA doesn't remove the Phantom Hunter from the MHSF, so enough of that. Jarl hangs out and camps the remaining three Fury.



Issyria allocates a few to the Hyperion, and feats. The MHSF proceed to annihilate the Fenns, but with Tough rolls and Feign Death, I still have 7 of them. On MHSF hits a Boomhowler, but he toughs.

The Halberdiers move up. The Chimera runs around the Hyperion to get more central to the map. Assassins push forward, and that's pretty much it.



There's nothing to upkeep, so Jarl pulls everything in. Fell Caller pushes forward and does Reveille, standing the Fenns up, who minifeat, charge, and force CMD checks. The MHSF fail, and will flee, but unfortunately, with Inviolable Resolve from Issyria, she can cast it before they even activate and nothing will have changed except she's down 2 focus from what she would have had.

So. One MHSF dies, and two get into Hyperion, and do decent damage, but nothing crazy. The Bomber moves up, puts 2 shots into Hyperion, boosted for damage on them both, and the Slag hits twice, doing some serious damage as well. I don't think I crippled anything on either side, but I did do decent damage. Storm Troll tries to get in there and electro leap some things, but can't make it work.

Impaler gets Far Strike on Jarl. Jarl magic bullets off of the Hyperion and kills an MHA. He then feats, and hides all four beasts.

The Boomies do a 4+ tough and charge, only a few of them actually getting the charge. They spread out a bit and kill a few Halberds, but that's it.



Sure enough, Issyra puts IR on the MHSF, and velocities back. The mhsf activate, and try to clear off the Hyperion, but fail to kill the two Fenns engaging him. Not because they weren't hitting and doing damage, but because I had hot tough rolls. One, however, does tick me off by shooting down my whelp back by Jarl that I was hoping to reign in my fury with. So much for that.

Holt tries to do work and he can't get it done either. Hyperion can't take any shots against my trolls because he can't see them, but he can't move any because the Fenns are in the way. He ends up blowing his activation killing the two Fenns remaining.

The Halberds tangle with the Boomhowlers again, but only connect against 2, and both tough.



I have a ton of fury out there, probably seven, and Jarl is sitting on 3. I pull everything off of the Impaler, and one from the Slag, but the Bomber and Impaler both frenzy, the Bomber goes after the objective and the Stormtroll takes down some boxes on the Slag troll. The Slag troll, sitting two fury, throws a shot into the Hyperion, boosts damage, and hurts it again, but not bad.

Impaler Far Strikes Jarl, who kills Holt, but can't quite get Ayaina. The Boomhowlers push back into the Halberds and kill a few. It's just a slugfest from here on out.



Hyperion gets focus again, and the Chimera gets a few too. The Halberds get back into the Boomhowlers, hit and box every one of them, multiple times, and I pull off a 100% tough with them.

Chimera charges the Bomber and does some damage, but fails to cripple him, and I spawn whelps.

MHSF focus fire and kill Chronicler and Fell Caller. Hyperion walks up and kills both the Slag and Stormtroll.



Boomhowlers stand up and kill more Halberds. The Impaler and Bomber take the Chimera down to a few boxes. Runebearer puts Quicken on Jarl with the minifeat, and Jarl casts far strike on himself and goes wide, putting 2 fully boosted shots into Issyria, and leaving her on two boxes.



The Halberds no long outnumber the Boomies, in fact, there's only two. They keep trying, but the Boomies are still toughing like crazy. The Hyperion walks in and tries to smash Jarl, but he transfers to the Bomber and kills him.

Issyria sprints as far away as she can.



Boomhowlers converge on the Halberds, Impaler finishes the Chimera, and Jarl goes chasing after Issryia in a hopeless race.



MHA charges Jarl and murders him.



Thoughts:

1. Should have dropped madrak2. But, I wanted to try Jarl. Overall, Issyria isn't the end all the forums made her out to be, but I'm also playing trolls. She completely neuters a ranged unit, so Trolls don't mind that too much.
2. Hyperion was simply too much armor. I really didn't have anything to handle that, and I knew it from the start. The assassination was really the only chance I had, and I botched it the turn before hand by running my beasts hot. Impaler/Bomber and just 2 more boxes of blast damage and Issyria would have been gone.
3. Jarl is anti-ranged, no doubt, but MHSF counter that quite well, and love eating Fenns. A double warder list might have worked better, but overall, a typical brick of any sort would have done much better. Of course, there's Ossyan for that, but ok.